Digital BW, The Print

It was difficult to make any absolute judgments about the print quality due
to a number of factors; size of room, number of prints, and quality of
light. What did strike us was that we did indeed have many different looking
prints. We left behind the Version A prints, those that were to be printed
straight, to allow for a print exchange type distribution of the image for
inspection. I got in very late last night from the trip, but will post some
shots that I took of the prints handing on the walls. I will need to catch
up on business so it may be tomorrow or the next day before that happens. 

 

I didn't take any notes other than visual inspection that night. There was a
variety of print quality presented that night for sure. I for one was very
glad to have made the effort to be there and to meet the folks that were
also in attendance. It was however, too short an event and too long a table
to really talk to everyone but still a very enjoyable night. Thanks for
putting it together Amadou !!!!! 

 

 

I am sure that we can all make gray scale ramps from our settings if that
truly would mean something. However, as a silver printer for many years, I
know that there are many ways to skin a cat, and file prep for printing will
vary as does negative creation and printing still do in the land of silver.
It will always still be in the hand and eye of the human element  (aka the
printer) to truly make the call as to where to place certain values.  There
was no information collected on the prints, or by me, as to whether any
calibration equipment was used and if so what kind. 

 

More on the event later, 

 

Cheers

Eric

 

 

Eric Neilsen Photography

4101 Commerce Street

Suite 9

Dallas, TX 75226

http://e.neilsen.home.att.net

http://ericneilsenphotography.com

Skype ejprinter

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Thank you,Amadou, for thinking up and providing us with this very 
interesting evening. 

For those of you who haven't followed the discussion, we were first 
supposed to print a fully manipulated, sharpened image with an 
embedded profile on Photo Rag 308. I naturally assumed that all 
these prints would end up looking pretty similar.

My print was done on the Epson 2400 with no rip, and with a 
downloaded Hahnemuhle profile. I assumed that this print would serve 
as the control, with the more sophisticated systems providing more 
subtle, somehow better, prints. However, this is not what turned 
out. In fact, the standard prints showed a surprising amount of 
variability.Actually,someone mentioned that the manipulated prints 
looked more alike than the standard prints. As Dave Tobie mentioned 
above, the Epson 2400 print looked about as good as most. Recall 
that these prints had no user imput other than setting up the 
printer parameters.

So, I'm a bit puzzled about what this all means. Perhaps, one of the 
more knowledgable members can comment on what we found.

Evan













--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Eric Neilsen" 
<e.neilsen2@...> wrote:
>
> It was difficult to make any absolute judgments about the print 
quality due
> to a number of factors; size of room, number of prints, and 
quality of
> light. What did strike us was that we did indeed have many 
different looking
> prints. We left behind the Version A prints, those that were to be 
printed
> straight, to allow for a print exchange type distribution of the 
image for
> inspection. I got in very late last night from the trip, but will 
post some
> shots that I took of the prints handing on the walls. I will need 
to catch
> up on business so it may be tomorrow or the next day before that 
happens. 
> 
>  
> 
> I didn't take any notes other than visual inspection that night. 
There was a
> variety of print quality presented that night for sure. I for one 
was very
> glad to have made the effort to be there and to meet the folks 
that were
> also in attendance. It was however, too short an event and too 
long a table
> to really talk to everyone but still a very enjoyable night. 
Thanks for
> putting it together Amadou !!!!! 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I am sure that we can all make gray scale ramps from our settings 
if that
> truly would mean something. However, as a silver printer for many 
years, I
> know that there are many ways to skin a cat, and file prep for 
printing will
> vary as does negative creation and printing still do in the land 
of silver.
> It will always still be in the hand and eye of the human element  
(aka the
> printer) to truly make the call as to where to place certain 
values.  There
> was no information collected on the prints, or by me, as to 
whether any

> calibration equipment was used and if so what kind. 
> 
>  
> 
> More on the event later, 
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Eric
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Eric Neilsen Photography
> 
> 4101 Commerce Street
> 
> Suite 9
> 
> Dallas, TX 75226
> 
> http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
> 
> http://ericneilsenphotography.com
> 
> Skype ejprinter
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

I'm not sure why ya'll would think that all the unaltered output
should look the same. Those of you who were using Studio Print
benefited in the unaltered state by using a Studio Print tagged grey
workspace designed for quad PiezoTone output. I was using K6 Piezo out
of QTR designed for specific custom curves and matte qtr profile, and
my unaltered version (I didn't cheat and apply my curve) was
noticeably darker, though of full scale tonally. 

Fact is any "workspace" that Amadou had tagged the file with was going
to show variation on many of the different machines,inks, and rips.
Personally I was amazed that they were as close as they were. 

My observations were that the K6/K7 prints produced pretty much the
same tonality, resolution, dmax, regardless of the type of Epson
printer used. I didn't know that would be the case. If one was output
on a 9600 with 2880 and the other was output on a 2200 or a 7000 with
1440x720 it didn't matter on Photo Rag.You couldn't tell.

When it came to the "edited" prints, the ones we were free to dodge an
d burn, do selective work on, etc. then you saw some difference but we
were all pretty conservative about interpretation. But the difficulty
was saying which was best - the lighter ones, the smoother ones, the
more contrasy ones, etc.. it's all subjective.

For me my K6 looked a lot like the other K6 and K7 prints. The two
guys who stood out to me, the ones that I would want to pick up and
take home would be Tyler Boley from Seattle (all three of his
iterations) and Walter Blackwell from Chicago. They were both Cone
quad prints run out of Studio Print. But the difference was in the
printer's skill, not the technology itself.

Thanks so much Amadou. It was great and the restaurant was great. I
wish I could have talked to everyone. Next time we need a whole day,
with people giving slide shows of what they do personally and
professionally with photography.

Fact is, the technology is so good now (Finally!) that we can
concentrate on being expressive and not so hung up on the materials.
They're all good. It's all good.

Thanks for dinner David. After spending money all over NY we
appreciated it! I'm sore from all the walking and I still missed the
Walker Evans show.

John





 I naturally assumed that all 
> these prints would end up looking pretty similar.
>